Bring back Dixon of Dock Green complete with all the cops they had then plus most of the laws and the seeming more responible attitude of the time and the fact that clipping some yob round the ear...
--- On Fri, 2/27/09, Steve Haywood <[email protected]> wrote: From: Steve Haywood <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [canals-list] Re: trolleys on Jeremy Vine To: [email protected] Date: Friday, February 27, 2009, 1:29 PM 2009/2/27 Adrian Stott [email protected]. uk > > Sure. Expediency is the way to go. Why bother dealing with difficult > stuff like whether the identified villain is actually guilty of > anything? > > You are so charmingly old fashioned sometimes, Adrian. Where have you been living? Expediency has always characterised the application of justice, because justice like everything else is a commodity. And not one that we're willing to spend much on recently, as it happens. For God's sake man, look at the workings of the magistrates system. Ot the lower reaches of Crown Courts. Criminal courts have always been expedient: that's why there's such a statistically higher chance of getting done for certain socially-associated crimes like TDA, and virtually no chance at all of getting prosectuted for office pilfering which actually amounts to a far greater drain on resources, albeit commercial rather than private. Your attitude mirrors most British people who still harbour the foolish idea that their judicial system is 'the best in the world' Like our police, our cars, our TV etc etc. Actually it's among the very worst systems - and mainly because it isn't expedient enough. British and US people always feel the overarching need to punish the offender. My priority would be to stop the offender offending which I say having been the victim, I suspect, of more crime than anyone on this list. This is what northern European systems do. They consequently have a lower prison population, a comparatively lower crime rate across most indices, and far, far less recidivism. We on the other hand continue to stuff our prisons to the gunnels and constantly bemoan the breakdown in society reflected in everything from knife crime to - as in this case - trolley theft. We get what we deserve. Steve [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
